Mr. Alexander J. Urbelis is an experienced attorney who has also been part of the information security community for more than 20 years and who has truly varied experience as a C-level officer, in-house counsel, private practice litigator, and a federal attorney.

Based in both New York and London, Alex was the Chief Compliance Officer of one of the world’s largest luxury conglomerates. As such, Alex handled all aspects of worldwide legal compliance, including anti-bribery and anti-corruption efforts, whistle-blowing matters, internal and external investigations, and ensured that employees and partners adhered to strict standards of business conduct and corporate social responsibility. Prior to his role as CCO, Alex was in-house information security counsel, charged with responsibility for mitigating information security risk, managing incident response scenarios, and developing procedures beyond industry standard best practices.

Alex is the principal architect of our firm's unique DNS monitoring and intelligence platform, OMNI (Open-source Multidisciplinary Network Intelligence). Designed to identify hallmarks of impending attacks, cybersquatters, counterfeiters, and other malicious actors, using our OMNI platform Alex has assisted companies worldwide with the early detection, investigation, and termination of sophisticated cybersecurity threats before a breach or reputational damage occurs.

At Steptoe & Johnson LLP in New York and Washington, DC, Alex’s practice centered around issues at the intersection of law and technology. Counseling companies both domestically and abroad, Alex provided data security and privacy advice, and assisted the world’s largest technology companies and non-profit organizations with issues of Internet governance and the expansion of the DNS through ICANN’s new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Alex personally worked on the drafting and submission of over 200 gTLD applications during the first application round. In addition, Alex has considerable experience with Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) proceedings, Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) proceedings, and national Dispute Resolution Proceedings (DRPs) to reclaim domain names from cybersquatters.

An active member of several privacy and security-related organizations, Alex frequently lectures on the subject of cyber security and open source intelligence (OSINT) collection, and provides strategic legal and technical advice in domestic and cross-border proceedings involving privacy, national security, data forensics, spoliation of electronic evidence, and disputes pertaining to technology-related contracts and patents.

In recognition of his technical and legal acumen, Alex was recently selected as a Member of the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) Security Council for the 2017 - 2020 term. In addition, Alex was elected to the Board of Directors of the Internet Society NY Chapter for the 2018 - 2019 term.

As an appellate lawyer, Alex has represented US service members and civilians in claims for compensation for torture before the US Supreme Court and has successfully argued for Convention Against Torture protection for potential deportees in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Alex’s federal service includes working for the Office of General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, the US Army JAG Corps, and as a Research Associate in the Technical Analysis Group of Dartmouth College’s Institute for Security Technology Studies, a national center for information security and counterterrorism research and analysis. Alex also served as a judicial law clerk to Chief Judge Effron of the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and as a judicial extern to Justice Denise Johnson of the Vermont Supreme Court.

Alex is regularly called upon by the media to opine on matters both legal and technical, and his published writings range from scholarly works, to bar journals, to op-editorials for CNN and The Intercept. Alex is a correspondent for the Oxford Martin Cybersecurity Capacity Portal, a pioneering and interdisciplinary research center of the University of Oxford, and also a producer for the weekly radio show and podcast, Off The Hook, broadcast on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York.

Public interest work is of great importance to Alex. His pro bono matters have included appellate representation in immigration and death penalty proceedings, and extensive litigation on behalf of indigent tenants in New York.

New York's Changing Retail Scene, NYCity Woman (quoting Mr. Urbelis concerning the authority of the NY City Council and the Small Business Jobs Survival Act) (21 February 2019)

WLIW, The Strand Book Store Continues to Resist Landmark Status (discussing Mr. Urbelis' proposals to NY City that would avoid landmark designation) (20 February 2019)

Patch.com, Strand Book Store Will 'Fight to End' Against Landmarking (quoting Mr. Urbelis' remarks to the NYC Landmark Preservation Commission) (19 February 2019)

Gothamist, To Avoid Landmark Status, Strand Owner Offers Up a Compromise (quoting Mr. Urbelis concerning his proposal to NYC for a preservation easement as opposed to landmark designation) (19 February 2019)

CNBC, Nightly Business Report (quoting Mr. Urbelis concerning inherent problems with privacy policies, social media, the sale and transfer of data, and the erosion of user trust) (06 February 2019)

NY Times, The Battle to Make the Strand a Landmark Is About More Than a Building (quoting Mr. Urbelis' remarks to the Landmarks Preservation Commission as counsel to the Strand) (30 January 2019)

Associated Press, Mystery: Who Bought Websites Implying US Senators for Sale (Mr. Urbelis identified hundreds of mysterious domain registrations targeting politicians on both sides of the political spectrum, repub'd by NY Times and other major news outlets) (23 July 2018)

Hackaday, Oh the Fun You'll Have with a Bit of Social Engineering (Stories and techniques of social engineering set forth by Mr. Urbelis in this detailed coverage of the panel) (20 July 2018)

Social Engineering Panel, Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) XII (Mr. Urbelis participated in the always popular social engineering panel, explaining effective techniques together with live examples performed on stage) (20 July 2018)

Radio Popolare Conference, Milan, Italy (Mr. Urbelis spoke on several panels about security, privacy, and the impacts of these subjects on US politics) (16-18 June 2018)

Cybersecurity and the Law, Underwriters Laboratory (UL) Security Council (Mr. Urbelis presented to colleagues on the Security Council on the crossover of information security and legal issues, with emphasis on cybersecurity blindspots relating to the domain name system) (7 May 2018)

The Recorder (Law.com), WHOIS - Web Tool Used by IP Attorneys, Law Enforcement In Peril (Mr. Urbelis was quoted on the subject of whether Whois data is critical to cybersecurity investigations) (17 April 2018)

Il Manifesto, The Cambridge Analytica Chain Reaction (in Italian) (Mr. Urbelis was interviewed concerning the privacy and security issues stemming from the Cambridge Analytica fiasco and the use of social media) (25 March 2018)

Hacktivism in Brooklyn, BRIC TV (Mr. Urbelis was interviewed on the subjects of hacktivism, the DNC breach, 2018 voting election concerns, and the SecureDrop whistleblowing system) (27 February 2018)

Il Manifesto, Where North American Digital is Going (in Italian) (Mr. Urbelis was interviewed on the subjects of net neutrality, the future of broadband, and the proposed merger of Disney and Fox) (23 December 2017)